Well I'm happy to hear a patch for the Cod 4 UFO Hack is been released (finally), and its good to see Infinity Ward still supporting COD 4 when MW 2 is right around the corner! Talking about that I hope I get a good number on my NVG Soap Head Stand...

Anyways I think I'll do a small review of Flower:



Flower

Well flower is quite a cheap game I recently purchased off the Australian PSN store for a very small price of around 12 bucks. It is a very short but beatuiful game with no real objective than to, well bloom flowers. Sounds a bit like a little kids game but really its not, well it could be but my friends and I enjoy it a heap, a long with a whole lot of other people.

If your an XBOX fan reading this your out of luck, a PS3 exclusive.

Now I'll start off with the hugely simple controls. When games use sixaxis *COugh* lair *cough* they usually turn out an epic failiure. With Flower it isn't. Yes flower uses sixaxis to control the wind your controlling and blows it in all directions. Theres only 1 actual button needed and you can choose that one button. You can choose any button on the controller for the wind to blow and move forward, wether it be X, Square, Right analog stick or left trigger, anything. If you don't like one just change in game without going to any menus.

Now I found these controls weird in the first few levels and I started to keep forgetting you can't use the analog sticks to move, but the sixaxis. Eventually however you get the feel of the game and the controls start to feel natural and relaxing in your hands. I use the R2 trigger due to the fact with sensitivity you can choose how fast the wind acctually blows.

Flower is a very relaxing games with most levels set in dull fields which you eventually bring to life by blooming the flowers on the ground. The graphics look pretty outstanding although simple, with thousands of blades of grass swinging around individually in the wind.

When you bloom a flower there is an extra note added to the music playing and it feels very soothing to have little different instruments chirp in at different times.

Now the game is very, very, short, I finished it to the end in around 1 hour. However there are secret flowers you can go back to find, 1 or 2 in each level. Also after you go for the trophies it expands the playtime quite a lot.

Flower does not have a timer or a point system or anything. Theres no game over and no dieing. You can't get shot by hordes of Nazi Zombies or Helghast and its a perfect stress reliever. However I'ld like to see more game modes and an online part. Maybe bloom a certain ammount of flowers within a certain time. Or I would like to see either online or offline split screen with collecting as many flowers as you can within a level.

I would give Flower a 8.1/10 due to the fact it is very relaxing and the music is brilliant. The grass moving individually also is good processing wise. I would like to see a longer playtime and more game variation modes however which could have boolstered the score a bit. Still if you want a relaxing game aside from all your first person shooters for a great price and replayability, this is the game for you!

Conclusion:

A relaxing and beatuiful game, guarenteed to calm.

Menus- 8.5/10- Nearly no menus, just a flower which you select using motion control

Graphics- 9.1/10- Graphics calming and lovely to see grass blowing so naturally

Sound-9.9/10- Sound is amazing especially when you collect more flowers

General Playability- 7.8/10- Motion controls hard to get used to, but rewarding in the end

Replayability- 7.7/10- The first levels you'll want to replay... the others not so much

Final Score- 8.1/10

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Well that wraps up this blog and hope you keep on reading!

Ben